


When you walk with Jack Kelly, you end up running

by theseamofthesky



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: First Kiss, Jack Kelly has a poor grasp of personal space, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1921503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseamofthesky/pseuds/theseamofthesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David is the only newsie to regularly wear a tie. As time passes, he comes to realise how much that is due to how Jack treats that particular piece of neck-wear</p>
            </blockquote>





	When you walk with Jack Kelly, you end up running

When David had first started working as a newsie, he had told himself he wouldn’t let his standards slip. So he had asked his mother to press his clothes as usual, buttoned up his blue shirt right to the top, carefully parted his hair, and knotted his tie carefully in place. Just because he was a newsie, he told himself, it didn’t mean that he had to dress like a common street urchin.

After the strike, when Jack and his boys had knocked every preconceived notion about street urchins he had possessed out of his head, he was unable to look back on that morning without a hot prickle of shame.

The boys had taught him that outfits that looked to have been made from cast-offs and items salvaged from the dog end of a Salvation Army sale were just that, but also that no self-respecting newsie would ever carry the banner without looking their very best. After all, when an extra layer could mean the difference between simple discomfort and a winter spent shivering like a man possessed, clothes were important. And like all important things, clothes had become a competition.

David learnt how an unpatched pair of trousers let a boy walk tall, whilst an undershirt with elbows that had worn thin meant awkwardly tucking arms in until the blemish could be covered. He began to understand all the complexities of the petty hierarchy of sartorial choices.

Well, almost all of them. He didn’t think he’d ever understand Spot Conlon’s ridiculouscane.

The lack of water in his shoes and the reassuring weight of his jacket faithfully reminded David that, whatever hardships his family had faced, he had never shared in the newsies’ fear of winter, a fear almost as numbing as the cold itself. He had tried to explain the shame of this to Racetrack once. He had received such an unimpressed, pitying stare that he had wished his nickname was the Walking Nose, the Walking Chin, anything but Walking Mouth.

As summer faded into a crisp autumn, David had begun to make subtle changes. It wasn’t that he dressed scruffier (he could never patronise the boys that way) but he no longer dressed as though he would get a demerit for a collar that wasn’t folded properly.

One thing he refused to compromise on though was his tie. He had discovered that ties were generally considered useless by the newsies. They afforded no warmth at all and put you at risk of a choking in a fight. They were basically a cissy version of a scarf.

For some reason though, David couldn’t let his go. It might have been a way of enhancing the daydream that he was a reporter and the headlines he was hawking were ones that he had written himself. It might have been a way of letting his mother feel that things were carrying on as normal.

Or it might just have been the way that Jack Kelly could not keep his hands off that tie.

It was a fact widely agreed upon by the newsies that when you started off walking with Jack Kelly, you ended up running. David had lost count of how many times he had fled the Delancey brothers, the police, other newsies (and on one memorable occasion; Medda herself) with a jerk on his tie as the only warning.

He remembered catching his breath in alleyways, straightening his tie, as Jack laughed like a hyena, pulling him into a rough, one-armed embrace.

However, the tie did not only function as an alarm bell. Increasingly, David would find Jack running the material through his hands as he painted vivid pictures of open spaces and opportunities stretching as far as the distant horizon.

He wondered if Jack had any concept of personal space at all. The taller boy would always manage to stand close enough to David that their bodies were pressed side to side like books on a shelf, and close enough to let his breath rustle the fine hairs on his nape.

At first, he had found this easy familiarity slightly unnerving. He found it alarmingly easy to become swept away in Jack’s great schemes when the other boy was close enough to kiss.

He also found it alarmingly easy how his thoughts turned to kissing when Jack was around him.

He found it almost terrifying how those thoughts of kissing refused to leave his mind, invading even his dreams with an annoying persistence.

However, he chose not to find it alarming for long. Using the few practical skills he had absorbed during his time at school, he turned his thoughts to observation. He thought with a grim smile about how his former teachers would react to their lessons in the erstwhile subjects of geography, history and literature being adapted to the study of who Jack Kelly would like to kiss.

A boy always accustomed to observing others, he studied the way that the newsies would tip their hats and whisper compliments of varying lewdness when a pretty girl walked by. He noticed that, although Jack never failed to tip his hat and nod appreciatively, there was a mechanical quality to the actions. He also noticed that Jack never joined in on the compliments, lewd or otherwise.

He observed how, whilst happy to join in with the insults bestowed upon Mush’s exploits with the ladies, Jack never offered any stories of his own.

He observed how Jack’s interactions with the pretty chorus girls at Irving Hall always had a studied, careful air to them.

Had he widened his view a little, he might have noticed this studied quality in Racetrack’s interactions with the fairer sex and its complete absence in his interactions with Spot Conlon.

But David focused on the leader of the Manhattan newsies and soon compiled a mental dossier on the taller boy. He allowed a tiny spark of hope that there was more than friendship in Jack’s touches to kindle inside of him.

Still, his nerves outweighed the wild excitement that rushed through him at all hours of the day. He lacked a catalyst and it didn’t seem as though Jack or the universe at large was rushing to provide him with one.

-

 

Then, just as the air was beginning to bite, vaudeville theatre stepped up to the plate. Irving Hall’s temporary role as a rally venue had generated a surge of interest and Medda had found herself swamped with young hopefuls, desperate to portray her as a Lady Liberty figure, leading the downtrodden boys of New York to victory with a winning smile, a catchy tune and a hint of cleavage.

Finally finding an interpretation that suited her, Medda had made the necessary arrangements. A preview was announced and invitations were sent. David and Jack were to watch the show, only from a box, not hanging onto ropes beside the stage.

When the night arrived, David soon realised that he was doomed to remember next to nothing about the performance. Jack had apparently gone to Denton and had managed to wrangle a shirt and tie out of the reporter. Really, David should have been ashamed of himself. The shirt was at least two sizes too big and Jack’s attempt at (presumably) a half Windsor was woeful, but David had to stop himself from catching his breath.

“Scrub up well, don’t I?” laughed Jack when he caught sight of David’s face in the lobby, pulling him close and attempting to ruffle his hair.

“Shut it,” David replied, wriggling out of his grasp, “Medda’s got security tonight to kick out louts like you.”

Still wrestling surreptitiously, they made their way to their seats.

Throughout the performance, David focused on the steady press of Jack’s knee against his.

-

 

When the final curtain fell, they had tried to make their way through to Medda but were repelled by a strong crowd pressing flowery compliments on the singer.

The boys shrugged - there was plenty of time to congratulate her - and made their way into the night.

In the crowded theatre, David had been able to keep himself still by reminding himself of how they were surrounded. Alone on the street with Jack however, the idea of wasting this opportunity was increasingly difficult. He hung back, watching Jack’s long stride.

“That Medda, she’s something, ain’t she Davey?” Jack called over his shoulder.

Hearing no reply, Jack spun around. “Davey? What’s the matter with you? It’s freezing out here.”

David threw up a quick prayer to whatever gods might be listening and marched towards his friend. He forced his shaking hand to grab Jack’s tie and pull him into the nearest alleyway.

He only got to appreciate the rare slack-jawed surprise in Jack’s face for a second before he closed his eyes, threw caution to the wind and kissed him.

Jack went incredibly still and incredibly stiff against him. He remembered with a terrifying clarity how ably Jack could defend himself against men twice David’s size.

Just as he was about to cut his losses and run, Jack threw his arms around his back, holding him almost uncomfortably tightly. His stiffness melted away and David felt his customary easy smile forming against his own lips.

“Never thought you had it in you, Davey,” he laughed softly, “Thought you were never gonna realise that I’m irresistible.”

“You’re hardly irresistible,” David muttered, but couldn’t stop a matching smile from spreading across his face as Jack pressed him gently against the alley wall.

-

  
  


Later in the year, when the nights were drawing in and growing longer, David would learn that a day without Jack was as impossible as a day a chill in the air. He would also learn that the only reason he needed to wear a tie was so that Jack could take it off.


End file.
